Oath Bound
Page 19

He pulled a clean rag from a drawer and wrapped his ice pack in it, then pressed it to his jaw again. “You throw one hell of a punch.”
“You smashed my phone.”
“Sorry. I couldn’t let you call Julia.”
“Julia?” I scowled and backed slowly toward a microwave cart on the other side of the room, where several steak knives were spread out on a folded towel, evidently set out to dry. “I told you I don’t work for her. I was calling the police.”
He shrugged. “Well, that’s almost as bad. I’m sorry about your phone, though.”
“What kind of kidnapper apologizes? And lives with his grandmother? And forgets to take away the victim’s phone?” My spine hit the cart and I slid one hand behind my back, feeling for the handle of a knife. “You’re the worst kidnapper ever.”
He watched me closely, but stayed back. “I’m not a kidnapper.”
“My unwilling presence in your home says otherwise.”
“Okay, yes.” He acknowledged my point with another shrug. “But there are extenuating circumstances. Why don’t we sit and discuss this over a drink? Or are you hungry? I’m not much of a cook, but I can handle boxed mac and cheese, if you’re interested.”
I wouldn’t eat or drink a damn thing he gave me, but...
“What happened to the stove?” I glanced pointedly at the front of the ancient appliance, where all four of the burner-control knobs were missing. Was nothing normal in his house?
“Oh. Gran nearly burned the house down yesterday, so we had to take the knobs off the stove, and now I can’t remember where Ian hid them...” He turned and took a cookie jar from the top of the fridge, and when he peered inside, I let my fingers skim the cart at my back, searching for the knives.
My kidnapper huffed in frustration and put the jar back. “They were in here yesterday, but now they’re gone...”
My fingers closed around the handle of a knife and my stomach roiled when I brandished it at him, trying not to think about the damage a different blade had done behind my parents’ locked doors. Could I do to my kidnapper what was done to my entire family? Even though he hadn’t laid a hand on me?
Yet.
He hadn’t laid a hand on me yet. And he claimed not to want me to return to Julia Tower, but hadn’t he already proved he’d do anything to get his sister back? Why wouldn’t he trade me for her? I’d do it in a heartbeat, if our situations were reversed.
“Give me your phone, or I swear I will gut you.” By some miracle, my hand was steady. The same could not be said for my stomach. I hate knives.
His pale brows rose and he crossed his arms over his shirt. “Then how will you get out of here? You don’t know where you are, and it’ll take the police forever to trace a cell phone. My grandmother doesn’t have one. And she’s not a Traveler.”
I frowned and glanced at the kitchen window, mentally working on a Plan C.
“You could break the glass and shout for help,” he suggested. “But I can’t let you go, and even if you tried, you’d cut yourself trying to climb out.” Only an idiot would leave her blood lying around for anyone with the requisite Skill to use against her. “And there’s no one around to hear you scream for help. The nearest neighbor is more than a mile away.”
More than a mile between houses? Either he was lying—though the lack of traffic noise said he wasn’t—or his range was much better than I’d guessed.
Either way, I had to get out, and I had to do it before his friends came back and my odds got even worse.
“Why don’t you calm down and have a seat?” He glanced at the kitchen table and the four chairs around it. “If I put my gun down, will you put your knife down?”
“Hell, no! I’m not going to put the knife down, I’m not going to sit, and I don’t want to talk to you. So you can either let me out of here, or you can get ready to bleed.”
I scanned the kitchen, looking for something light enough to lift, but heavy enough to break glass.
“Sera...” His tone resonated with warning as he set the ice pack on the counter, tense now, as if he might pounce if I made one wrong move. “Whatever you’re thinking...don’t.”
My gaze landed on a ceramic napkin holder shaped like two halves of a pineapple, sitting on top of the microwave. The kidnapper took one step toward me, arms out at his sides, as if I might rush him at any moment.
Instead, I grabbed the napkin holder and hurled it at the nearest window.
Glass shattered and a jagged hole appeared in the pane. Both halves of the pineapple landed on the dark grass outside, about a foot apart.
“Damn it,” he swore.
“Kris?” a woman’s shaky voice called from the other end of the house, and recliner springs groaned as his grandmother sat up in her chair.
“It’s okay, Gran. Go back to sleep,” Kris—finally the kidnapper had a name!—said without taking his gaze from me. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered, and anger flickered across his expression.
“I probably shouldn’t do this either, then, right?” I grabbed a wooden rolling pin from a stainless steel canister of large utensils and swung it at what was left of the window. Glass exploded outward, onto the grass.
“What the hell are you doing in there?” his grandmother demanded, and the chair groaned again. “If one of you hellions put another pool cue through my—”